Terrified lorry driver's HGV torched by fire-obsessed arsonist while he was inside
dailyrecord.co.ukA lorry driver cheated death by just two minutes after waking up to a massive explosion before quickly leaping out of his cab after a fire-obsessed arsonist set it alight.
Jacob Cooper, who was branded “dangerous” in court had a “fascination with fire” and loved to watch flames as a “comfort” when he was under stress.
Julia Baggs, prosecuting, said that a lorry driver was sleeping in his lorry parked, when at 12.40am, he heard an explosion.
The driver's trailer was on fire and he quickly put some clothes on and jumped out of the cab, which was a blaze. “He felt very lucky that he got out in time and he dreaded to think what would have happened if he had not got out when he did,” said Miss Baggs, at Hull Crown Court.Not far from the Aldi car park in Swinemoor Lane, Beverley, where Cooper had targeted the HGV, at 12.55am, a second van went up in flames near Phoenix House in Grovehill Road, Beverley, after Cooper set fire to it.
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